[John Serz scrapbook]
Title
[John Serz scrapbook]
Description
Scrapbook of print specimens, proofs, and original drawings primarily delineated and compiled by German-born Philadelphia engraver John Serz. Contents include book and periodical illustrations; separately-issued views; portrait prints; certificates; and job printing specimens. Majority of graphics depict religious, landscape, historical, genre, and fashion views, including plates from "Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints" (New York, 1864); Auerbach’s "Tales of the Black Forest"; Sartain’s Magazine; Graham’s Illustrated Magazine; W. Alvin Lloyd’s Railroad Guide; and Demorest’s Monthly Magazine. Religious and historical themes include the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, and other Biblical scenes, Mary and Jesus, scenes of prayer, William Penn's Treaty, the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, and the Civil War. Other well-represented material is separately-issued city, bird's eye, landscape, and collegiate views showing European and American sites, including Albany; Baltimore; Boston; Dresden; Hildburghausen; Humboldt (Ca.), New York; Washington, D.C.; Fort Putnam; Philadelphia; Georgetown College; Notre Dame University; Lake of Four Cantons (i.e., Lake Lucerne) and Rutli, Switzerland; West Point; Suspension Bridge over Niagara; and Tivoli. Scrapbook also contains numerous portrait prints (often frontispieces); advertisements; European prints, as well as watercolors and drawings, which show the Centennial Exhibition (1876); landscapes, village scenes, and tree and flower arrangement studies., Portrait print sitters include John Stainbach Wilson, M.D.; Mary A. Niemeyer; Daniel Webster; Hannah Rose Hoffman; and E. R. Beadle. Advertisements depict primarily Philadelphia storefronts and factories and often also show street and pedestrian traffic. Businesses include X. Bazin Perfumery Laboratory (917 Cherry St); Joseph J. Canavan Morocco Factory (1225 N. Fifth St.); Allen’s Furniture Warehouse (1209 Chestnut Street); Joseph Beckhaus Carriage Factory (1204 Frankford Ave.); Gumpert Bros. cigars (1341 Chestnut St.); Oxford Carpets Mills (Wm. Hogg, Jr.)(140 Oxford St.); Baugh & Sons, Manufacturers of Raw Bone Super Phosphate Lime (120 S. Delaware Ave.); Theo. Wilson & Co., Steam Ship, Bread, Cracker & Cake Bakery (212 & 214 N. Front St.); White, Hentz & Co., Rectifiers of Spirits & Importers of Wines & Liquors (222 N. Second St.). European prints include plates from Bernard-Romain Julien "Cours Elementaire" and from Wilhem Hermes's figure drawing books "Berliner Zeichenleher," i.e. United States Systematic Drawing Schools (New York edition); engravings by Serz, several published by German publishers Schneider U Wegel, and primarily showing views of German villages Unterberg (Bavaria) and Nuremberg, and bridges, castles, and churches; and chromolithographs, including the title page, from the Korn'schen series of views of Nuremberg "Ansichten von Nurnberg". Other content includes job printing specimen vignettes and labels depicting allegorical, patriotic and industrial imagery; proofs of the "Rose of Philadelphia, "Rose of Washington, D.C.," and labels for patent medicine manufacturer David Jayne illustrated with Jayne's Building, Chinese characters, and a dramatic scene; and images of wild and domestic animals, including a condor, lemming, sheep, dogs, horses, hippo, boar, camel, and elephant., Contents also include certificate specimens for a temperance society, Sunday School, and the fraternal organization Alpha Omega; the relgious-themed prints "A Curious Piece of Antiquity on the Crucifixion of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ," "Jesus Healing the Sick," and "The Two Thieves: The Holy Land Exhibiting the Places & Cities Mentioned in the Old & New Testament"; the Serz color engraving Kriegs =Neurigkeiten (i.e. War News) showing men gathered at a table in a village tavern; an advertisement for Philadelphia calico printer Wm. Simpson & Sons depicting a sepulchral monument; and a post mortem portrait engraved by Serz showing Napoelon II, i.e., Duke of Reichstadt., Various American and European artists, engravers, lithographers, and printers, including W. H. Bartlett; J.C. Garrigues & Co.; H. B. Hall & Sons; Heliographic Co. of NY; Langlumé; G. Lury; A. H. Payne; J. C. MacRae; J. Poppel; John Sartain; F. Silber; Joshua Shaw; and F. W. Topham., Various American and European publishers, including D. & J. Sadlier & Co.; John Dainty; Francois Delarue; Friedrich Kornschen; F. W. Thomas & Sons; Parmelee & Co.; Henry Tuessli & Co.; and Max Jacoby & Zeller., Some prints annotated with lines of perspective., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012., Loose items retained in album., Gift of Madelyn Wolke, Lucianne Reichert, and Clifford A. Mohwinkel Jr., John Serz (1808-1881), born in Nuremberg, Bavaria, worked as an engraver in Germany before immigrating to Philadelphia circa 1851. Naturalized in 1856, Serz earned enough income from his trade to be taxed by the I.R.S. during the Civil War. During the 1870s, his bird's-eye print "Philadelphia and Environs" was advertised in the "Public Ledger" and he served as professor of drawing at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music. Serz was also a president and secretary of the old Artists Club and member of several German societies, including the German Society of Pennsylvania. He died of a skull fracture in 1881.
Creator
Serz, John, ca. 1810-ca. 1878
Date
[ca. 1842-ca. 1893]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *albums (flat) [P.9773]
Engravings by William Humphrys
Title
Engravings by William Humphrys
Description
Scrapbook of print specimens and proofs engraved by Philadelphia and London engraver William Humphrys. Contents include postage stamp proofs, book and periodical illustrations, tile pages, portrait prints, advertisements, and cut outs of banknote and certificate vignettes. Majority of graphics depict allegorical imagery or illustrations of genre, religious, sentimental, and literary scenes, some from the plays of Shakespeare. Illustrations include scenes of courtship; female friendship; children with animals; a ghoulish-looking woman with a torch; a European man smoking a hookah; Jesus Christ; Adam & Eve; and imagery from Edmund Spencer's "Faery Queen", John Milton's "Palemon's Story," and John Gay's "Thursday: or The Spell." Allegorical works depict the figures of Columbia, Minerva, Mercury, Neptune, Bounty, Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, Hope, and Apollo, as well as scenes with the American eagle; caducei for the "Liverpool Apothecaries Company"; citizens fighting a fire; cherubs charting a globe; Native Americans; a family; sailing ships; and symbols of farming, trade, and industry. Vignettes also show a portrait of Benjamin Franklin; Pocahontas saving John Smith; and a female warrior slaying a man of royalty captioned "Sic Semper Tyranus.", Portrait prints, some probably from the British periodical "Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country," depict Israel Putnam; George Washington; Gustavus Adolphus; Mrs. Sloman, of Covent Garden Theatre in the Character of Baltimore; Thomas Carlyle; William Dunlop; Letitia Elizabeth Landon; D. M. Moir; and Henry Purcell. Scrapbook also contains an 1844 banknote specimen of "La Provincia de Buenos Aires" illustrated with vignettes of ostriches; ca. 1845 postage stamp proof depicting Queen Victoria after the Chalon portrait; a full-length portait of an unidentified man, possibly Humphrys; and an advertisement for the Philadelphia artist Joshua Shaw showing a man leading his horse down a bucolic path, as well as engravings after his work of a landscape and an advertisement for Cohen's Lottery Exchange Office, Baltimore., Title from stamp on spine., Morocco binding., Various American and British artists, including W. Chatfield, John Opie, Joshua Shaw, Robert Smirke, C. R. Leslie, Charles L. Eastlake, W. E. West, George Smithard, Carlo Dola, A.E. Chalon, J. Wood, J. Stephanoff, Pastorini, Alfred Croquis (i.e., Daniel Maclise), A. F. Tireggi, John James Barralet, J. Banks, J. M. Wright, Thomas Stothard, P. Williams, Camille Roqueplan, and R. Westall., Various American and British printers and publishers, including H. S. Singleton, J. P. Davis, and James Fraser., Manuscript letter by Humphry completed January 10, 1865 to Anna Holloway pasted on opening page to scrapbook. Letter details his ill health, which in spite of, he still appreciates "the brightness of the sun, the greeness of the earth, and the beauty of extreme nature.", Some scrapbook pages contain manuscript notes identifying the genre of the specimen., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012., Lib. Company. Annual report, 1967, p. 55., William Humphrys (1795-1865), born in Dublin, immigrated to the United States early in his life and studied engraving under George Murray in Philadelphia. He worked as an engraver in the city circa 1815-1823 producing book illustrations, advertisements, and banknote and certificate vignettes. He also served as secretary for the Association of American Artists. Relocating to England, he produced similar work before returning to the United States in 1843. In 1845, he moved to Dublin to engrave "The Reading Magdalene" for the Royal Irish Art Union before returning to England where he worked as an engraver for the firm Perkin, Bacon, and Co. During this employ, he was noted for his re-engraving of the head of Queen Victoria for the 1 d postage stamp. Humphrys retired from engraving in his later years and worked as an accountant for the printing firm Novello & Co. He died at the Novellos' Genoa villa on January 21, 1865.
Creator
Humphrys, William, 1795-1865
Date
[ca. 1817-ca. 1845]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums - Humphrys [7607.F]